Celestron 93230 1.25 inch / 8-24mm Zoom Eyepiece, Black/Silver

I was very sceptical about buying a zoom eyepiece, as most reviews on them seem to look down on them. But I chanced it, and now it's all I use. By the time you've messed around changing lenses to get a closer look, you've lost your image. I only have an 8" Dobsonian, but for that it's brilliant. I'd recommend this to anyone, just get out in the garden with this and a decent telescope for hour of fun. Save yourself loads of money on buying more than you need. It's well made, gives a nice clear image, is smooth in transition from 24mm into 8mm and doesn't go out of focus.

This zoom eyepiece is very versatile, much easier than swapping eyepieces around when having a quick look around the night sky. What isn't immediately obvious to people is the fact that if you remove the rubber eyecup (it is made to be easily removed) there is a thread which allows a T2 camera adapter to be fitted. Works brilliantly and allows you to take some great shots. (Much cheaper than a high powered telephoto camera lens!) Be aware though that your photos will be laterally inverted, no problem to flip though, using the appropriate software for your photo editing. All in all, this zoom eyepiece is a well made, quality accessory for your telescope which you will find very useful.

Fortunately, Celestron's information is more accurate than Amazon's. This eyepiece does zoom between 8 and 24 mm and it does do what is says on the box. At 8mm with my Nexstar-8SE scope I get a magnification of 254 and a measured field width of 20 minutes. At the minimum magnification of about 85, the field width only grows to 31 minutes because the angle of view subtended to the eye reduces. This compares with the 80 magnification and 40 minutes with the Celestron standard 25 mm non-zoom Plossl eyepiece.So it works quite well at the maximum magnification, not quite so well at the minimum, when as well as giving a more restricted field of view than the 25 mm eyepiece, I feel star brightness is slightly less. It doesn't make the 25 mm eyepiece redundant. Where it does score is in looking for objects on the limit of visibility. You can see them grow and shrink as you zoom in and out. The general optical quality is reasonable.Amazon supplied the eyepiece with their usual efficiency. One of the UK dealers had kept me waiting for several weeks and eventually admitted that they didn't know when I would get it.

Really useful item. It allows you to find objects in the sky when zoomed out and then zoom in for more detail once you’ve found what you’re looking for. The only downside seems to be that my existing filters don’t fit.

A brilliant zoom lens.I thought that this was indulgence, but having seen zoom eyepieces praised on The Sky at Night, I felt happier.This Celestron version is simple to use. No focus "tweeks" required as you zoom in.Rather than try different eyepieces until resolution falls off, you can easily finds what is best for your celestial target.Also good at a star party, when you tell them to just twist that barrel !A little expensive, but you get what you pay for.

I had a second hand scope that only came with one eyepiece, gave this a try as it seemed a good option for the price, I'm really happy with it for what I want, easy to use, and being able to zoom in with minimal effort is great,

It is a good quality item, p.s. be aware of laws of physics, the cumulative effect of light reduction through each lenses means less lights reaching your eye and it will be darker, but this is physic and no one can scape, but overall it is good quality item.

A run of the mill adjustable eyepeice, build quality is ok, but like all celestron stuff, it has a flaw, which is the lens inside, its poor quality and despite the description, its not Spectra Coated, its a standard lens so you get a lot of flare when viewing objects.